


Happiness is a Butterfly

by butterflies_in_august



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Boys In Love, Break Up, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, Gay, Heartache, Heartbreak, LGBTQ Themes, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Break Up, To Be Edited, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28135401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflies_in_august/pseuds/butterflies_in_august
Summary: Eden, a drug addicted 20 year-old, struggles to process the fact that he ghosted the love of his life, Jayden, after he realized he couldn’t handle a long distance relationship. He gets to the point that, he realizes, he cannot picture their face anymore.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

I can’t seem to create an accurate picture of you in my mind anymore. This fact has been tormenting me since I realized it. As I beat myself up trying to visualize your face, an all encompassing numbness swallows me. I try and try but I can’t manage to conjure up what you look like. I doubt I’ll ever be able to again. It’s like I’ve hit my head and caused my memories to get jumbled up and a few to fall out. I’ve never been a particularly imaginative person, but your face was burned into my mind for a while. I remember your round eyes, as blue as the ocean, and how they would darken like there was an incoming storm during certain activities. The memory of your soft skin is etched into my fingertips. Even the shape of your mouth is engraved into mine. Still, these images cannot come together to form one. It’s devastating in the most torturous way possible. 

Even worse than that, by the time I return to you, if I return to you, you will have forgotten my face like I have yours. This volatile realization hit me like a truck, knocking me back into a reality I didn’t want to face. It bit me right in the ass a little ironically, because this is my fault. Not wanting to face these thoughts, I willed them to leave me alone. Regardless of how hard I tried to stop it, my brain kept going. When you lay your eyes on me again, if you lay your eyes on me again, the memories that have rotted away in both of our minds will come flooding back and you’ll feel the pain for the first time in a long time. You’ll resent me even after all those years and turn me away. I’ll drive back to my shitty motel with tears in my empty eyes and almost swerve into a ditch because of how hard I’m crying. I’ll know that I dug this hole myself and if I hadn’t left you in the dark that day, I would still have you in my life. The worst part is, if I were you, I would send me packing just as fast.

I should have just called and told you. Letting you know that I couldn’t handle the distance would have been eons better than letting you think I didn’t love you anymore. The day I stop loving you will be the day Hell freezes over. I was so much of a coward that I probably jeopardized our chances of ever having a functioning relationship again. My mind must have made the decision to stop texting you back without considering my, or, more importantly, your feelings. The human brain is aware that it is going to do something ten seconds before the mind consciously realizes it. Knowing that makes me want to stab through my skull and into my frontal lobe to stop my brain from making anymore life-altering decisions without consulting me first. 

There has not been even a millisecond that I’ve not thought about you since that day. When my dog died, you were on my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about how upset you’d be for me if things hadn’t changed. As soon as school started up again, you were all I could think about: not homework, not exams, just you. At the funeral of a boy who shot himself with his mother’s gun, you were there in my head, right next to the sickeningly graphic images of brain matter and blood covering the corpse of my classmate. As I sat in the pews and listened to the Priest spew something about how God is good, I couldn’t help but wish I was in his place. I deserved to be the one in that casket, because dying is the only possible experience that could be worse than what I must have put you through. 

Still, uncontrollable pain follows me everywhere I go. My chest hurts more and more everyday; even after 5 months, the pain continues to grow. Regardless, the torment I’ve put myself through cannot begin to compare to the hell I’ve haphazardly sent you to. The regret has never gone away. I feel it every single day on this godforsaken planet. I feel it as soon as I wake up. I feel it when I get ready for the day and I feel it as I lie down in bed after class. I feel it when I pop an unreasonable amount of whatever pills I can find in an attempt to not feel it anymore. It haunts me like a vengeful spirit and I let it because without it I have nothing left of you. I would rather bathe in a tub of acid than forget about you. If I let myself forget, you cease to exist. I had a hard enough time accepting the fact that you weren’t a figment of my imagination when I still had you, and as my brain slowly loses the ability to create a picture of you, I can feel that fear coming back tenfold.

Is it unreasonable to think of you as a ghost? That’s how you’ve felt to me for the longest time now: a ghost that I killed. I’m sorry for murdering our love. I wonder what I am without you. Surely, I’m not an individual anymore. You occupy my every thought and my world revolves around the idea of you like the earth revolves around the sun. I’m one half of a two piece puzzle that I myself have lost the other half to. I know how to get to the missing puzzle piece, but I’ve bent it up so badly that if I tried to put it back now, it wouldn’t fit. 

After you left Chicago, I just couldn’t deal with the separation. Being without you was like being thrown into the freezing cold after sunbathing on a nice summer’s day. Life was different in the worst way possible, especially without a phone. I couldn’t afford one at the time, and texting you for five minutes on a friend's phone every couple days was torment. It wasn’t enough for me, and I should’ve rationalized that leaving us with nothing would be the hardest thing I would ever have to go through. 

I wouldn’t blame you one bit for shutting your door in my face and locking me out if I ever tried to find you. I have no room to, when I basically did the same thing. If I ever decided to text or call you, I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me to fuck off or if you just straight up ignored me. I think I deserve to be ignored. The former gives me closure and the latter leaves me how I left you: clueless.

Only a few very, very close friends approved of our relationship. I never told you that. I know that us being together made my parents resent me a bit. They didn’t like that you were older than me. They, themselves, are the same age. They found it weird and predator-like that we were together. They said there was a power imbalance because of our ages, like five years was enough to create that. They fed me the craziest shit once you went back home. 

Our relationship was toxic: that’s what my family used to say. Maybe they’re right, but I’ll never be able to bring myself to give a shit. Over holiday, my parents attempted to brainwash me into thinking you were using me and didn’t love me. I almost let them once, while I was in a very vulnerable state of mind. They always found out things that they didn’t need too, always knew too much. They still know more than they need to. They always will. 

Regardless of what they say, I know you loved me. I know you probably still do, because I know you. I know everything about you as you do me. We’re the same person; you’re still me and I’m still you. We said if one of us left, we’d kill ourselves. I’ve tried to end the pain, but I wonder if you have too. When I return, will it be to you or to your grave? That thought plagues my mind. I haven’t had contact with you in so long that if you died, I wouldn’t know. 

Every thought of you is drenched in pain and regret. I can’t shake the feeling that you feel the same way. It’s worse to think that I’ve affected your daily life so drastically in a bad way. All I want is to be the reason that you’re happy every day again. I have no room to complain so much about the pain, because it’s all my fault. Every queasy dead- eyed day and every almost-overdose is all my fault, isn’t it? The pain you're going through? My fault. The absence of even a couple minutes of time together? My fault. The void that our parting has left in both of us? It’s fucking all my fault. It’s my fault that there’s nothing I could ever do to bring us back together.

So, instead of uselessly attempting to find you again, I go about my day in a haze. I wake up at whatever time my brain decides to torment me a bit extra with flashbacks in my dreams. I wait for my alarm to go off and I get dressed in what I probably got dressed in the day before. I drag my sorry ass out the door and into my car. Once I’m at work, a busy Starbucks in the middle of the city, I put on my apron that’s just as dirty as the rest of my clothes and clock in. The customers spill in at about seven thirty and everything is business as usual from there: taking orders and washing dishes. I clock out after eight hours of boredom and drag myself back into my car and eventually my house. I get home and take a handful of something to get me high, maybe chug some liquor or roll up a joint. It’ll never be enough though, will it? You’re the only thing that will ever be enough for me. 

Y’know, I didn’t even smoke when we were together. I quit because you told me it was bad for me; I didn’t care about my health, but you did and that was enough for me. The second we parted I dove headfirst into every drug I could get my hands on. I’m an obsessive person and I need an obsession to thrive in life. Without you, all I had left was drugs, alcohol, and whatever else would inebriate me. I didn't, don’t, care what it is; I just need something to make me forget about how fucking good you made me feel, because I’ll never feel that way again. 

Maybe one day I’ll damage my brain enough to forget about you completely. I’ll never be able to live happily knowing that no happiness will ever live up to the happiness you made me feel. It’s exhausting living with that feeling. I’m sure it’s more exhausting living with the fact that a lover left you without a word. For that, I am so sorry. I can say that as much as I want, but it won’t come close to the apology I owe you. I owe you an apology that goes further than words, gestures, or gifts; I owe your soul an apology for taking away it’s second half.

All of this could mean nothing to you. I could just be fucking monologueing in my head for no reason because we’re never going to meet again. I need to accept that. I need to accept that there’s a possibility that you give zero shits about me. I wonder everyday if you actually do, if my concerns for your feelings, for your life, are even plausible. Do you not care that I left? Or does it haunt you every day like it does me? Do you still love me? Or do you hate my guts as much as I do? If I messaged you this, would it even be worth it? Or would you text back “lol I don’t care”? These questions terrorize me almost as much as my guilt. It’s likely that you’ve moved on to some extent. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say you’ve found someone else. Or maybe, I’ve completely shattered your trust for anyone. It’s impossible to know.


	2. Verbatim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eden causes Andreya pain and stress.

“Eden, what the fuck are you doing in there?” Andreya, a coworker and close friend of Eden’s, calls into the bathroom, exasperated. She’s used to his shit, but during a shift, really? That is the last straw. 

“Thinking, Andie, thinking,” He replies monotonically. Eden really doesn’t care at this point. He knows she would never go to the boss about it. 

“Ah yes,” that’s the answer she needs, “thinking. Thinking about what, avoiding taking coffee orders and leaving all the rush hour work for me?” 

Bingo, he thinks sarcastically. He decides to answer after hearing Andie sigh dramatically, “Thinking about Jayden, actually. About how I miss him,” Eden says. There’s really no point in elaborating further. 

Andreya sighs, softly this time, as she leans against the bathroom door. She never presses for too much information, but it kills her to know as little as she does. Eden would break down if he talked about his and Jayden’s relationship in too much detail. She knows he misses him enough for it to hurt, so she just sits on the tile floor and waits for him to come out of the bathroom. 

Eden, on the other side of the door, is in the middle of crushing up some sort of pills to snort. He honestly has no clue what they are and doesn’t really care to ask questions. So, instead, he just nudges the powder into three thin lines and inhales as hard as he can with one nostril. After all of it is in his system, he flushes the toilet to make it seem like he wasn’t just doing opioids during work hours and walks out of the door. He glances down at Andie, who shoots him a dirty look. 

“Your nose is bleeding.” She says with a straight face, clearly unsurprised with Eden’s apparent drug use. He curses under his breath before turning back into the bathroom to grab a tissue. 

“Thanks,” Eden says, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“You’re gonna get caught one day, y’know,” Andreya says. 

“I know,” He replies. 

She doesn’t push it past that, just leaves it as it is. 

They sit in silence for a while. Eden lets the cold floor cool off his sweaty self while Andreya tries to relax before returning to their jobs. Knowing your friend is an addict and not being able to do anything about it is heartbreaking, stressful, and definitely not a god thing to be thinking about at a Starbucks of all places. 

Eventually, they both walk back to the front counter. Their coworker heaves a ‘finally’ and walks off to take his break. Andie throws Eden his apron and pushes him up to the customers. He lets his instincts tell him what to do as he impatiently waits for the high to kick in. 

He feels like a child, with how impatient he is. He taps his foot subconsciously and shakes his hand when he writes names on stickers. It’s, honestly, pathetic. 

About thirty minutes pass before he feels it, and it hits hard. Hard enough to knock him off balance when he turns to hand Andie a sticker for a cup. She gives him a knowing look and a pat on the shoulder before handing the drink to the customer with a smile. 

Eden conjures up all of his highschool-theatre-class acting skills and puts on a bright smile as he begins to take orders again. He feels fantastic, but the customers probably wouldn’t appreciate an employee acting noticeably high. So, he has to will away the tingly numbness for another couple hours. 

Despite his amazing acting skills, he must let himself go for a minute, because when he looks up from what feels like the hundredth coffee cup of the day, there’s an angry looking woman staring right at him. 

“Excuse me Sir, I’ve been waiting 10 minutes for my coffee. That is way too long of a wait for a place like this.” says the angry lady, or Deborah if he recalls properly. 

“I’m sorry Ma’am, I’ll have that right out to you.” Eden says with a fake smile. He grabs Deborah-the-angry-lady’s drink from the back and hands it to her. She glares at him as she walks away. 

Eden whispers something about the lady being a buzzkill to Andreya. She snorts a little and they return to their respective jobs. Eden keeps dragging his feet from the counter to the coffee cups every time a customer comes in and Andie keeps grabbing the cups he hands her and filling them up with too-sweet coffee. 

An hour, not that Eden can tell how much time is going by, passes before his actual break begins. He takes this time to sleep with his face pushed into the table of the break room. If he sleeps his life away, he won’t have to deal with his guilt. Simple solutions to not so simple situations.

He sleeps dreamlessly for thirty minutes. The warm embrace of dreamless sleep is welcomed with open arms. Usually, he has crippling nightmares when he sleeps. Thankfully, his mind isn’t tormenting him too much anymore.

After a while, Eden feels different, to put it in words. He’s asleep, but he knows something is wrong; something is very wrong. He startles awake and takes in a deep breath before passing right back out. Everything goes away after that. 

—————

“Eden, wake up,” Andie urges him with a little shove, “Our break is over. Time to go back to the counter.” He doesn’t move. She panics, shaking him violently right away. He stays unmoving. Fuck, this isn’t right. Andreya calls out for help but doesn’t hear herself. Her ears ring and dread settles at the bottom of her stomach as she fears for her friend’s life. 

She scrambles to fish her phone out of her apron pocket and dials 911. The phone beeps once, twice, three times, before someone answers. Andie sighs in relief and tells the women that she works at the Starbucks in the middle of town. Time goes by so agonizingly slowly after she hangs up the phone. The hospital isn’t far away, so the ambulance can’t take but two or three minutes to get there, but it feels like hours. 

When the ambulance gets there Andie’s a mess. She watches as the paramedics wheel Eden out on a cot and into the ambulance. Not being able to handle watching a very passed out, very close to death Eden, Andreya takes her own car to the hospital. The car ride there is even slower than the wait for the ambulance to get to Starbucks. 

Once Andie gets there, she’s a sobbing mess. Her bawling alarms the receptionists and other people in the waiting room. Somebody asks her if she’s okay and she wheezes out a polite, “yes, thank you.” In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good idea to drive alone at night while crying her eyes out.

Andreya waits as patiently as she can for news about Eden. The hospital takes their sweet time letting her know anything that’s going on. With silent tears streaming down her face, she gets up to get some tea from a little counter. She tells herself that tea should calm her down, but in reality tea just reminds her of Eden and makes her cry harder at the prospect of him not being okay. 

She curls up around two itchy hospital waiting room chairs and lets her tears soak through their cheap fabric. Andie doesn’t really care if anybody around her is judging her for it. She feels like shit and she’s not gonna let the fact that people are around stop her from getting comfortable. Well, as comfortable as she can be after watching her unconscious friend get wheeled into an ambulance. 

Once she’s angled to watch the news channel on the TV, she wipes her face on her apron and unties it from behind her. Andie realizes that she must look ridiculous crying at a hospital in a bright green Starbucks apron.

It must be obvious to onlookers that someone might be dying. It’s easy to tell when somebody knows something like that. They get this look on their face that tells you they know more than they should. Other than that , there are a few people giving her sympathetic looks and a couple giving her why-are-you-sitting-like-that looks. Thinking about what they’re thinking about makes Andreya uncomfortable. Being in the hospital in general has always made her uncomfortable. 

Since she met Eden, the ER has always reminded her of him. Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time he’s overdosed, though it is his first unintentional one. Andreya has been with him through the last two, has waited in two different hospitals in two different towns for a doctor to tell her if her best friend is dead or not. She’s watched him lay still in a coma for weeks, watched him foam at the mouth from a concoction of chemicals she couldn’t even name. And, here she is again, in another hospital in another town waiting for another doctor to tell her if her best friend is going to make it. 

Eden’s drug addiction causes everyone close to him so much stress and pain. Andie wishes he would admit to his problem and seek out the help he needs, but she knows he won’t unless he’s forced. 

If his dumbass survives this one, he’ll be forced to. That’s the only good that can come out of this sort of thing. 

Eden means a lot to her. They’ve been friends since middle school and have lived together for the past three years. Andie has seen him at his worst and at his best. She’s grown up with him and she doesn’t know what she’d do if he was finally successful in killing himself- She doesn’t want to think about it. 

Instead of thinking, Andreya sleeps. Her and Eden have always had that same habit. She supposes she probably sleeps for thirty minutes or so, but it’s hard to tell. 

A tall, thin lady walks up to her and taps her shoulder at one point, “Excuse me, are you with Eden Rivera?” 

Andreya startles awake and shakes her head yes. The doctor must see how impatient she is because she starts talking again without hesitation. 

“Well, I’ve got some good news,” the doctor says as Andreya sighs in relief, “and some bad news.” 

Andreya groans under her breath. She knows what’s coming next. She’s been through this same process before.

“We got Eden’s vitals stable and pumped his stomach, but unfortunately he is still unconscious. We don’t know how long it’s going to be before he wakes up.” the doctor relays the news. She gives Andreya another sympathetic look, identical to the other people in the waiting room. 

“Okay,” Andie says, plain and simple. She gives a half-hearted smile.

“Okay,” the doctor replies, “would you like to come back and see him?”

“Yes please.” She answers solemnly.


End file.
